Parade drew customers to local businesses

Indicators for whether this was a banner year for Rose Parade attendance point in all directions, but crowds were enough to boost sales at many local businesses.

No one knows exactly how many people watch the parade from the streets of Pasadena. Past estimates of 700,000 to 1 million were hunches at best, and this year Tournament of Roses officials and Pasadena police decided not to hazard an official guess.

Sharp Seating Co. President Sindee Riboli, in charge of all grandstand seating for the parade, said attendance may have dropped from last year because the parade was held Jan. 2 instead of New Year’s Day, in keeping with the Tournament’s “Never on Sunday” rule.

Riboli typically sells between 80,000 and 100,000 grandstand tickets, with a record of 120,000 sold on the parade’s 100th anniversary in 1989. This year, sales were in the lower 80,000s, she said.

Gold Line light-rail ridership, however, reached a new single-day record.

Trains to or from Pasadena were boarded some 80,000 times on Jan. 2, said Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority spokesman Dave Sotero. Average ridership in November was 38,000, and the previous parade-day record was 60,000, Sotero said.

Local shops and restaurants had different stories to tell, based on their locations and business hours.

For Marci Toombs, owner of the Lula Mae boutique in Old Pasadena, the number of visitors who watch the parade is less important than how many stay in town to spend money the next day. Lula Mae was closed on Jan. 1 and Jan. 2, but sales the following three days were up 25% from last year, she said.

“A lot of people were buying things made in Pasadena,” including soaps and jewelry, said Toombs. “We’re blessed to be right down the street from the Marriott.”

Rooms at the hotel on Fair Oaks Avenue were sold out for Jan. 1 and Jan. 2 and remained scarce afterward, said operations manager Travon Rasberry.

Dee Nishimoto, retail coordinator for the official Tournament store at the Pasadena Museum of History, also said sales were up, partially on the strength of lapel pins and other low-cost souvenirs.

It was a banner year for Crown City Sports, said owner David Harbaugh. Sales of Rose Bowl apparel and merchandise at the Old Pasadena store outpaced those for the past three bowl games, with Oregon Ducks devotees outspending Wisconsin Badger backers two-to-one, he said.

But for Robert Simon of AKA restaurant in the One Colorado shopping plaza, the year got off to a disappointing start. Although the courtyard off Colorado Boulevard remained open, crowd-control fences put up the Friday before the parade scared off potential customers.

“We didn’t see nearly the pop we’d like to have seen. I think the fences gave the impression there wasn’t a lot of activity here,” said Simon.

The Jan. 2 timing worked in favor of some businesses, said Old Pasadena restaurateur Jack Huang.

With no overnight sidewalk campers Dec. 31, Huang’s Villa Sorriso had its most successful New Year’s Eve Party in six years, he said. When campers showed up the following night, the restaurant closed early.

Restaurants to the east of Old Pasadena also reported doing well. Sales between New Year’s Day and the parade matched last year’s at El Portal and jumped 20% at sister restaurant Yahaira’s Café, said co-owner Armando Ramirez.

Though closed on parade day, traffic at Green Street Restaurant “was everything we could handle” leading up to it, said partner Bob Harrison.

On Friday, a few unsold Rose Bowl items were coming off display at Crown City Sports, signaling a return to business as usual and a push to make the most out of the NBA season.

“It’s all back to Chris Paul, Blake Griffin and Kobe Bryant now,” Harbaugh said.